The
Age of the Rose

How old is the rose? An indiscreet question! Primordial enough to have
left its imprint in the fossil record of 35 million years ago....
Ancient
enough to have watched every civilization wax and wane -
and seen all
the players come and go from the stage.....
Profound enough to be held sacred
as an immortal vessel of the divine .....
Venerable enough
to be praised with unfailing reverence in the masterworks of antiquity....Above
all else, perfumed enough to waft its sublime scent down the ages.
The
rose has been famous enough to witness public ceremonies for thousands
of years, and cherished enough to share mankind's private life each day.

"The rose is the honour and beauty of flowers
The
rose is the pleasure of heavenly powers"

- Anacreon (572 - 488
BC)

The pleasure of its company is an enduring satisfaction. No other flower
so perfectly blends sensual grace and spiritual resonance. Its being
is fluid - yet tenacious; naturally changeable - yet deeply rooted in
the timeless power of nature. The rose is old enough - and wise enough
- to wordlessly offer incomparable beauty - to hearten the existence
of women and men in this daunting world.

"To create a little flower is the labour of ages..."

- William Blake (1757-1827)

With each succeeding era - floral avatars have emerged
from the Genus Rosa: Blooms to reflect the aesthetic of their milieu,
giving body to the moment's soul. When one of these flowering beings
is invited into a garden, it vibrates with the breath of its original
hour under the sun. Not a descendant ....it is the selfsame
creature, fully alive and forever young at the present instant. The "old" roses
are the elders of an extended tribe - which is accompanying our human
race through the history of life itself.

"Age is even
more difficult to determine in plants that can be propagated by cuttings.
If you remove a cutting from a favorite plant
and root it in soil or water, when was it 'born'? When does it
'die'? If you take a cutting again from the newly rooted plant and
re-root it? If the cutting was left in its
original place on the tree or plant, it would eventually die; re-rooted
it may live longer than the plant from which
it came. If you re-root cuttings indefinitely, does the plant ever
die?…..... You might argue persuasively
that these plants are, indeed, immortal ."

- Leonard
Hayflick, How and Why We Age 1994

Rosa banksiae lutescens, The
Botanical Register (1827)

A genealogy spanning millenia makes the rose family tree one of the
most fascinating and complex in botany. Century after century, the rose
evolves ....elaborating its loveliness. The progenitors of the numerous
rose groups are the Species, the simple wild roses found throughout
the Northern Hemisphere. Beginning at the dawn of agriculture, various
representatives of these ancestral plants were domesticated. Thus began
the extremely long process of selection and manipulation of the rose
- which relentlessly continues today.
Modern roses have bright appeal,
yet it is the true old roses which have an aura of charming experience
and a halo of luscious grace.

Great Maiden's Blush, painted by Redouté 1817

" Oh no man knows
through what wild centuries
roves back the Rose...

Walter de la Mare (1873 - 1956 )

Forty centuries ago a few traditional bloodlines had already been established in the cradles of ancient civilization.
Minoan frescos and Egyptian tomb garlands testify to the presence of
recognizable roses. In the areas around the Mediterranean, a primitive
form of the Gallicas was being grown for the medicinal virtues
of its dried flowers. The exquisite Damask rose held an honored
place - prized for the quality of its fragrant oil and the ability of
a particular form to give flowers in Autumn. The Greco-Roman world
is saturated with the fragrance of roses which were used to embellish
all aspects of life.

R. gallica 'Officinalis'- The Apothecary
Rose

During the Dark Ages in the West, as the landscape was laid waste,
walled gardens were able to preserve treasured heirlooms - among them
the Rose.
Parchment manuscripts were illuminated with brightly gilded roses twining round their letters; ladies embroidered their trailing gowns with its image, and their knights wore the rose on their shields. Altars were respectfully draped with bloom - and spangled with the glowing light from glorious stained-glass ROSE windows.

Detail -Botticelli's
Birth of Venus 1482

As time goes by, cross-fertilization of the rose produced a
distinct range of types......and this horticultural heritage
was painstakingly maintained and refined. By the early Renaissance the Alba roses
- combining vigor, hardiness, and delicately pretty bloom - were being
painted by the great artists of the era. Their soft beauty drifts symbolically through the divine air of these pictures.......

In Shakespearean times, the European Sweet Brier ((fairy-tale
Eglantine with its apple-scented foliage) makes an appearance in A Midsummer
Night's Dream, alongside the Musk rose of far-reaching fragrance. Around
the mid 1700's in Holland, the Centifolias - so mundanely dubbed
'Cabbage roses' - reach a peak of floral perfection. Lush
still lifes of the period show the voluptuous charm of these magnificent
blossoms -emblematic of a cozy richness pervading Dutch domestic life.

R. centifolia muscosa alba,
painted by Redouté 1817

Toward the end of the18th century, the Moss roses suddenly
arise: astounding 'sports' of the Centifolias, their perfumed resinous
buds prove once again that the Rose is endlessly inventive. Soon
after, the Far East contributed Rosa rugosa, a remarkable Japanese
wildling - distinguished by its vigor and huge nutritious hips. Then,
at the very beginning of the 19th century, the four stud China roses
are brought to England - and their trick of perpetual blooming begins
to revolutionize the Western branch of the rose family.

Old Blush China,
painted
by Redouté 1817

In France, Napoleon's Empress Josephine commandeers all the available
species and varieties of rose for her Chateau Malmaison outside Paris......along
with the gardeners and botanical scholars who would catalog - and vastly
expand - her seminal collection. The renowned watercolors of Pierre Joseph
Redouté skillfully document the individual flowers of this imperial
endeavor.

Blush Noisette, painted by Redoute 1817

Such a brilliant concentration of horticultural material and
talent set the stage for an unprecedented flowering of the Genus
Rosa.

As the 1800's progressed, a surprising number of new rose classes came
into being: the Chinas and Teas, Portland Damasks, Bourbons and Hybrid
Perpetuals, Noisettes and Hybrid Musks, plus Ramblers and Climbers of
myriad growth habits. The older rose types were dramatically invigorated
by the fresh genetic material. Quality of scent remained one of the prime
criteria for assessing a cultivar's worth, and all the subtle nuances
of rose perfume find expression during this century. The sensitive tastes
of the epoch shaped an aesthetic ideal of perfect refinement...... The
cream of these 19th century roses are among the most beautiful creations
in the plant world.

" This true old Rose scent, the scent that has
charmed humanity from time immemorial is
assuredly the most exquisite and refreshing of
all floral odors - pure,
transparent, incomparable...... an odor
into which we may - so to speak - burrow
deeply without finding anything coarse
or bitter , in which we may touch bottom without
losing our sense of exquisite pleasure.And
this is far from being the case with all
fragrant flowers. "

- Louise Beebe Wilder (1878-1934)The Fragrant Garden 1932

Adam 1833,
from Belle Roses 1845

The development of the modern Hybrid Tea rose actually began
in the 1870's: the earlier ones retained much of the bloom quality, and
the pronounced fragrance, of their forebears.

La France 1867
from The Rose 1880

However, as the 20th century wore on, the hybridization of roses - like so many aspects of life - became industrialized. Factory-produced flowers became a fact of life. The rose, which had always served as an expression of the values and desires of its culture, gradually came to manifest those of modern times.

There continued to appear valuable high points among the roses used
for Bedding - on occasion, this class was capable of producing
real quality and significant horticultural interest. Nevertheless, the
majority of rose introductions scarcely measured up to the standards
of the past. Their sometimes garish colors, disease susceptibility, and
frequent lack of decent scent could be quite disappointing. Commercialized
rose breeding - with its narrow vison and assembly-line scale - seemed
to have entered a cul de sac.

"In gardening terms, I think there is
an unfortunate tendency to reduce the art of horticulture to matters
of color, texture, and shape, and to reduce the plants to the interchangeable
'plant materials' or 'growies' of landscape architecture classes..........For
the plantsman, and this is perhaps how we define him, the interest
of the plant is not exhausted by its color, size, shape, or botanical
definition. The plant is 'funded' in Dewey's words, with meanings...Disregard
of meaning is often associated with idolization of technical achievement.
It is, perhaps, advancing age that makes me view the garden as a
refuge from techniques rather than a place to display them."

The development of so-called "reproduction roses" emerged
in the last decades of the 20th century. Expanding lines of these intensively
bred roses are now an overwhelming phenomenon in the mass marketplace.
Calculated to combine the older forms and fragrance with repeat bloom
and disease-resistance, this vaguely mannerist formula has been a smashing
success. Still - these new types partake of the commodified spirit of
today's world - and emanate an indefinable air of being "virtual" old
roses. In some curious way they risk the monotony of perfected product. That said....... a few superb exemplars will undoubtedly become
future classics.

Nevertheless let us not forget that the Portland Damasks,Bourbons, Hybrid
Musks, or the Chinas and Teas offer their own
rosy blend of virtues plus the soulful distinction
of maturity. In addition, there are many eccentric rose characters
classed as Modern Shrubs: they rise to high horticultural
demands - and do so with individual style and unique panache. All of these roses, along with
the charmed category of divine little Sweethearts, can fill
special niches in everyone's garden.

The next horti-business frontier will presumably involve genetically
engineered roses. Not something one really wishes to contemplate.......
Let's not go there.

The sheer length of the Rose's connection with humanity has forged
a powerful link. While the old roses are sometimes referred to as "antiques" -
that scarcely captures the duration and depth of the relationship. An
antique needs only to have existed one hundred years, and most of the
rose family is of a far more impressive vintage than that. They are not
only the bearers of myth and romance, but reveal the sensibilities of
bygone days.

An old-fashioned rose by any name eternally holds a place in the human
heart. The classic roses are a peerless legacy - and a remembrance of
times past. A few stems of their archaic mystery still bestow upon us
everyday insight: The Old Rose is telling
a story intimately bound to our own..........